


The Unlikely Blurbs From Tumblr Prompt

by StringTheori



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Blurb, Gen, Steve has a cat, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StringTheori/pseuds/StringTheori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blurbs I write in response to Tumblr prompts! I get a kick out of it and they will be updated as I go. There's no real timeline, it's just fun, and I hope to make you all laugh.</p><p>Some swearing, and I enjoy Bucky/Steve so be prepared for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Post-It

**Author's Note:**

> No timeline and Steve has a cat. Pulled from this tumblr post:  
> http://drparisa.tumblr.com/post/83457705291/i-love-the-fics-where-bucky-just-breaks-into

Things feel wrong sometimes.

Steve isn’t sure why or how it comes about but every so often he walks into his apartment and parts of him freeze up. Nothing is different. His laundry still sits on the edge of his washing machine, the paperwork from his landlord with permission to get a cat is under the Iron Man paperweight, and no strange scent hangs in the air. Steve keeps his personal space clean, though more out of habit then the desire to have tidyness around him.

The cat in question even shows no sign of upset - she sprawls on the couch with all three legs up in the air, half tattered ears lax and comfortable. The animal shelter said she hates physical affection but when Steve walks in, she meows and wiggles, and will likely let him pet her ears later.

Ms. Snuggles is the best cat, in Steves opinion, even if she is crotchety sometimes and ten years old.

"Afternoon, Snugs." Steve puts his backpack on the floor and his jacket on the proper coat hook. She purrs at him. "Anything interesting happen?"

She chirps like a proper guard-cat and hops from the couch to follow him into the kitchen. Ms. Snuggles winds around his feet, Steve only keeping upright from Super Soldier Reflexes as he’s not yet learned the hopping balancing act of all trained cat servants.

"I know, I know, you’re hungry. Today is medication day, did you know that?" She meows. "You are the most precious cat."

Ms. Snuggles is not the most precious cat but she’s more than content to be dosed with her medication. It comes in a can and is delicious. 

Steve opens the fridge and goes still. One of his post-it notes ruffles in the breeze of the action. It’s in the shape of a moose, a gift from Tony Steve is actually fond of. It’s not the post-it that has him trying to breathe. It’s the words.

‘ **I hope you know your cat eats better than you do.**

**change your goddamn kitchen lightbulb and buy some groceries. stop being a punk.**

**xoxo’**

Then, scrawled underneath:

**'your cat likes me. we're both missing arms’**

"…Ms. Snuggles," is all Steve can say until she headbutts his knee. "I asked if anything interesting happened. You _lied_ to me.”

She gets her medication anyway and Steve doesn’t go into the living room to hyperventilate. He goes shopping instead.


	2. Stoplight Prosthetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Omg imagine Bucky walking down the street and seeing a little girl with an arm like his" via thealphapigeon - just what it says

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt on tumblr: http://onlyn0zomi.tumblr.com/post/85094007600/thealphapigeon-deansass-ok-so-i-have-a

Bucky does his very best to act like a normal human being even without steve at his heels. He’s never had the compulsion to murder everything in his sight but, sometimes, just every so often, crowds of New York tempt him to pretend. ‘It triggered something from training’ is both repulsive and all too plausible.

He pulls his hoodie down when the noise threatens to overwhelm him. Steve gave him earbuds some time ago and Bucky fills his music player on the regular with new music. Stark puts radio shows on them he calls podcasts but, really, they’re radio shows. Bucky likes the one wih the weird science thing and the terrified scientists. The hosts voice comforts and the odd tales comforts Bucky in knowing that there are people out there with creepier thoughts then his own.

The show stays quiet, a low sonorous buzz in his ears that gives Bucky something to concentrate one. The noises of others don’t fade and Bucky knows if he was without ears that the vunerability would be…

Bucky looks away from the stop light. A group of people loiter in front of him. They shift as a pack with a few children, adults talking amongst themselves, all of them looking up and down the busy streets as if the cars might magically freeze to let them through.

(He’s not sure if it’s bad manners to shove a particularily loud and racist man talking into his phone into the oncoming slow traffic.)

(If it is, would it be a crime those around him might report Bucky for?)

(Bucky makes a note to ask Banner.)

"Mom, I don’t wanna." A small whispering voice breaks through the up and downs of the mans voice in the background of Buckys conciousness. His eyes slant towards the gentle noise so out of place in the bustle of the city. And… a small girl leans away from an older woman even as she holds on tight to the womans fingers. The girl has a hoodie like Bucky’s, though hers is bright purple and ruffled at the hems, and she shoves her other hand into the pocket of her hoodie. Bucky sees a flash of silver and thinks nothing of it - nothing of *her* either, this little girl. He even turns his eyes away to the light, waits like a good little civilian, until he hears her say: "S’dumb, no one else is gonna have a metal arm."

The girl is no more than six and her hair is short and natural. Her tights are neon green and clash with the hoodie, her skirt a flouncy gray thing. She talks like Bucky does, all self deprication and quiet shame hidden behind not wanting to go againt the others. (If you can’t kill them, don’t join them.) She hunches her shoulders, looks away from her mother who sounds too much like Steve:

"No one will care, hun. You are beautiful and it’s so unique! No one will be scared over how you painted your prothesis."

Bucky knows the little girl never said ‘scared’, although she likely thinks it now. Her small chin tips down and there is, he sees, a tremble. She pulls her hand away from her mother and rubs, self concious, at her right arm as if it will make it all go away. It grates at him.

"I like it, though," says the little girl, softer than before. Bucky sighs and pushes his sleeves to his elbows before he steps beside them. Bucky doesn’t look at the child or her mother - the mother who says ‘its fine, love, you’ll see’ and then gets on her phone. The child looks at him anyway, her dark eyes going wide at the sight of his slightly tarnished metal hand. Her mouth drops open and Bucky wiggles his fingers, mostly because he can. "You." It is all but a squeak.

Bucky looks down at her. The child looks back. Then, just before the light turns green, she pulls out her hand from the hoodie pocket. Her fingers are stiff and not made of flesh and blood, nor of metal. All five fingers are stuck to one another and in place - it reminds Bucky of the temporary arm he has in his closet from when Stark took the current one apart. The girls has been painted a silver in a likeness to Buckys own and has a red star on the back of her hand.

"I have one on my shoulder too." says the small girl in a whisper that matches her size. Bucky raises an eyebrow and she huffs. "A *star*."

"Ah," Bucky says. "Of course."

"I saw you on television," she says, braver now. "I want to be tough like you. It’s not moving yet but soon!"

"Oh." says Bucky, who never feels very tough. He feels like a weapon. "Right."

She smiles like Steve anyway. The light turns green and her mother pulls her along. The crowd swallows mother and daughter. Bucky falls in with the swirl of people, lost as well, and hides away in the comfort of old noises and new gadgets. Something in his chest hurts, the at his heart full of warmth.

It’s an awkward feeling.

He discusses it with Steve later.

——

A few weeks later, Ayana receives a visit from Tony Stark himself once her mother gave full written permission for everything to happen. Tony stark brings with him a greeting from a certain metal armed man who is so very impressed with her courage and potential. There is, also, a request from this leader of Stark Industries for her to help him make this metal armed man the very best arm ever and would she like to help him design it?

Of course she would like to help him design it.

A few months later, Ayana has a new arm made of metal and the stars replaced by paintings of flowers the same color of her hoodie. Bucky keeps his Captain America Star - white, not red, blue background - but the next picture the press gets of him shows a bright purple wrist band on his right hand.

The most remarkable part is that he smiles in the picture as well, and no one is scared.


End file.
